Ministry of Defence (MoD)

Palantir recruits at least 32 public officials, including leaders of AI strategy from MoD and NHS

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/palantir-recruits-least-32-public-officials-including-leaders-ai-strategy-mod-and-nhs

 Defence Secretary John Healey (left) and the CEO of software company Palantir Technologies Alex Karp sign a £1.5 billion investment, at Wellington Conference Room, Horse Guards, Whitehall, London, September 18, 2025

THE “revolving door” between US tech firm Palantir and the British government raises serious questions about public contracts, campaigners warned today.

Dozens of experienced British public officials including the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and NHS’s AI chiefs have joined the controversial US tech firm Palantir since they left their government positions, a new investigation by the Nerve revealed.

At least 32 officials, former ministers, intelligence service chiefs and peers have taken up roles in the company which has been awarded £670 million in government contracts.

This included the former MoD senior official on AI, Laurence Lee, who also co-authored the military’s strategy document on the new technology.

Mr Lee has since become a senior adviser to Palantir CEO Alex Karp on “geostrategy.”

NHS England’s former director of AI, Indra Joshi, became Palantir’s director of health, research and AI in 2022 before leaving in 2024.

Four members of the House of Lords have also been on Palantir’s payroll, including the former chair of the select committee on science and technology.

On top of the previously reported relationship between the disgraced former US ambassador Peter Mandelson and Palantir, other peers who offered their expertise to the US tech firm include former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson and former special adviser to Gordon Brown, John Woodcock.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/palantir-recruits-least-32-public-officials-including-leaders-ai-strategy-mod-and-nhs

Being Assassinated in Your Home by a Killer Robot Sent by a Fascist State Is No Longer Science Fiction

Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn't know anything about democracy.
Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn’t know anything about democracy.
Continue ReadingPalantir recruits at least 32 public officials, including leaders of AI strategy from MoD and NHS

Morning Star Editorial: Public services can’t wear further cuts – Reeves must be stopped

Spread the love

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-services-cant-wear-further-cuts-reeves-must-be-stopped

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves arrives to meet students on the carpentry course during a visit to Bury College in Greater Manchester, March 20, 2025

…

Fourteen years of Tory rule have cut services to the bone. The notion that “efficiency savings” can slice off further billions without worsening already degraded services is absurd.

Ironically, the cuts are intended to fund increased military spending — though if there is a department renowned for waste it is the Ministry of Defence. The MoD is repeatedly excoriated by the public accounts committee for the huge sums squandered on projects that end up delayed by years or not delivered at all.

Current Defence Secretary John Healey, when in the shadow cabinet, published a report identifying billions it had overspent on projects and billions more paid for cancelled contracts with its often extortionate suppliers. The report noted that the MoD had even been fined £32.6 million by the Treasury for its “poor accounting practices.” Yet it is this department which is having more billions thrown its way.

As for extortionate suppliers, the evidence is plain that besides tying institutions from hospitals to schools into contracts forcing them to repay PFI debts worth multiples of the original loans, many such agreements also tie them into inflexible and costly servicing contracts.

Outsourcing services is massively inefficient, yet remains the norm, despite Reeves’s one-time promise to deliver “the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation.”

As the Prison Officers Association (POA) points out of outsourced prison maintenance, we end up paying through the nose for “crumbling cells, compromised safety and rodent-infested jails.”

“We do not for one minute accept that the privatised model of prison maintenance is more cost effective than insourcing … it is completely delusional to claim it provides best value for the taxpayer,” POA general secretary Steve Gillan observes.

Clearly value for money is not Reeves’s priority — corporate profits are, including at the Treasury’s expense.

…

Read the original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-public-services-cant-wear-further-cuts-reeves-must-be-stopped

Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the "hard times".
Keir Starmer commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Keir Starmer explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Public services can’t wear further cuts – Reeves must be stopped